Tuesday, July 5, 2016

SOMETIMES I GET ASKED STUFF... #37!

We’re back for a 37th installment of Sometimes I Get Asked Stuff… another jam-packed edition. In addition to questions from fans and readers, I've also pulled questions from writing groups/blogs/facebook as well to round things out. Thanks for all of the amazing questions. Please, keep ‘em coming. I absolutely love answering them. Yes, even the silly ones from time to time.

I hope everyone had a nice and safe 4th of July. It was quite noisy here as the neighbors set off enough fireworks that it sounded like a small war playing outside my window.

You can check out all of the past installments of Sometimes I Get Asked Stuff... here.

Q: Who's your
most favorite Lois Lane of all?

Noel Neill, who we
sadly lost this week, was my favorite for a long time. In recent years, Erica
Durance has become my favorite live action Lois Lane. Dana Delaney from the
animated series is a close second.

Q: What's your favorite comic book movie? Why?

Captain America:
Winter Soldier tops my list. This movie simply works on all levels for me. Not
only is the acting top notch, but at their core, these feel like the characters
I've known all these years of reading them in the comics. The story is well told
and the action really delivers. It quickly moved to the top of my list and
remains there.

Q:
Out of curiosity, do you do your reading on a Kindle or do you prefer a printed
book?

I
can do both, but prefer printed. I already stare at a computer all day. Paper
is a nice change for reading. When I read on a tablet, my brain thinks I should
be working and starts editing.

Q: What are your favorite places for settings, and why?

I set a lot of my stories in
Atlanta, since that’s home and I know the locations. Other than that, I have a
file of interesting places where a story could be set. Some are cities, others
just interesting locations I’ve run across in my travels.

Q: Do your
characters swear? Should fictional characters swear?

Some of my characters do indeed
swear while others do not. It all comes down to the character. Using foul
language is a character trait so it fits for some more so than others. For
those characters that don't, on the rare occurrence he or she does, it makes
for a powerful moment.

Q: Recently it was suggested that I've likely been placing far
to much emphasis on developing the perfect concept to write within.

That's
where all of my energy is going, leaving little to none left to actually write
the story. Does this happen to you at all? Whether it does or doesn't - I'd love
to hear your thoughts on the subject...﻿

I'm more a dive right in kind of
writer so I can't spend that much time just developing the concept. I need to
move. Once I have a concept I like, I dive in, developing and building on the
concept as I go. This is a method that has, so far, worked for me.

Q: On
average, how many books do you write in a year?

It varies, but I
usually have between 10 - 15 finished stories a year. That includes novels,
short stories, and comic book scripts.

Q: Have you ever
completely altered the location or dialog, or shifted the focus of a scene in a
work in progress just to see what might happen? Did it work?

Yep. He must be a writer. :)

Yes. I've changed
locations to see if the action taking place worked better at one or the other.

In my first novel, Evil Ways, I originally used a real city for the story, but
then I wanted things that weren't there so I invented my own town, which opened
up several storytelling possibilities.

Q: Why did/do you
want to be an author?

I do it for the money.

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Okay, you got me. I love
telling stories. That's how it started and that simple truth continues today.
If I was only doing it for the money, I would have given up years ago.

Q: On Friday I
let loose and write with abandon! No plans, no deadlines, no projects... just
beautiful, crazy words. Do you have a day when you let your muse run amuck?

Not any regularly
scheduled day, but I do, from time to time, just sit down and write whatever
pops into my brain. It helps clean out the cobwebs so to speak.

Writing outside...

Q: What do you do
to keep your writing experience fresh and alive? Take reading or movie break?
Shift gears to research or travel? Take a dance break? Listen to different
music while writing? What keeps your muse hopping?

Writing in a different
location helps me a lot. I take the laptop out onto the back porch or to a
bookstore or restaurant, sometimes I go to the library to write. Music also
helps.

Q: We all get
better over time. Do you sometime find yourself going back to old manuscripts
in hopes of revising and making them better? Have you every had one of those
old revised mms published?

I try not to go back
because I will always find something, but once a book is published, that ship
has sailed. I've mentioned that EVIL WAYS was my first published novel, but it
was not the first one I wrote. I wrote EARTHSTRIKE AGENDA, a sci fi
thriller first. It was okay and needed a lot of work, but I finished it and it
clocked in more the size of a novella than a novel. Eventually, I pulled it
out, gave it a full rewrite, and found a home for it. It was even nominated for
a 2013 Pulp Ark Award for Best Novel. It didn't win, but the nomination was an
unexpected surprise.

Q: Do you
contribute short stories to anthology collections?

Let's roll, Kato!

Yes. Frequently.
Anthologies are a great way to work in genres that you want to experiment
writing in, to write characters you might not otherwise have the opportunity to
write (as I did with Green Hornet), or just to test yourself. Writing a western
novel wasn't in the cards for me, for example, but I had a grand ol' time
writing a western short story. Anthologies often allow me to scratch a creative
itch.

Q: What are you
working on now?

As I type this, I'm
currently working on a Lance Star: Sky Ranger pulp novel while prepping another
pulp novel featuring The Avenger. Then comes Ghost Gal book 2. I'm also working on a comic pitch as well that I can't talk about yet.
Plus a few other odds and ends, edits, proofs, research, and the like.

My wallpaper

Q: We all know about
the days when we can't stop writing ... today, let's talk about the days when
we just can't seem to get started.

Oh, there are
definitely days when I would rather do anything else. On those days, it's hard
to get started and easy to become distracted once you do. The only solution is
to sit down and soldier through it if you're on a deadline because blowing
deadlines is a big NO-NO! If not, take the day off and start fresh tomorrow.

Q: What do you
love most about your current work in progress? What drives you to keep writing
it?

I love the characters.
Lance Star and his friend/one time enemy, Niles Isburgh (Ice) are great fun to
write, especially when they team up against a common foe. Through previous
stories we've seen their friendship grow organically from antagonistic (Ice
punched Lance when we first see them meet in Lance star: Sky Ranger vol. 1) to Lance risking his life to rescue
Ice from enemy clutches behind enemy lines (in the novel I'm working on now). Watching these two play off one
another is a blast for me.

Q: How often do
the things around you ... food, weather, personalities, news events ... slip
into your writing?

It happens. When I was
writing Evil Ways, it was raining a lot. The rain made its way into the novel
and it seemed to rain for most of it. Evil Intent adds a political element to
the thriller series. Both Deadly Games! and Evil Intent (coming soon) also look at the
media's role in world events, playing with certain character types.

Q: How much to
you think about the finished product while you're writing the book? Are you
thinking about cover art? Marketing? Audience?

I try not to spend too
much time thinking about those things while writing, usually before and after.
Then again, ideas hit you at those moments so you start making notes so you
don't lose those ideas. I already know what Evil Intent's cover will look like
and the novel is not quite finished yet.

Q: How much time
do you spend on research? What are your favorite resources? And how much
research is going in to your current WIP?

It varies. For the
Lance Star: Sky Ranger novel I'm working on now, COLD SNAP!, I had to research
WWII facts, planes, history, etc. I also have an aircraft carrier play a role
in the novel so I visited the USS Yorktown in Charleston, SC and took the tour,
making notes of things and imagining the characters standing on the deck, on
the bridge, in the pilot's briefing room, etc. Many of those notes have made it
into the novel.

Q: When you wrote
your first book, how did you overcome the curiosity of where and how to start?
Did you reach out to other writers? Take a leap of faith and just start
writing? Or read as many book about how to write a book as you could find?

I did ask questions of
other published writers as I was getting started, although that turned out to
be a mostly negative experience, with a few exceptions. After that, I just dove
in head first and did it. I did take a night class on creative writing, where
we shared our writing aloud for instant feedback from the group. I learned a
great deal from that experience.

Q: What three pieces of writing advice would you give
an individual graduating from high school?

Write what you want. Don’t try to write to
trends. That never works out well.

If you start it, finish it.

Oh, and have fun with whatever it is you
decide to do with your life.

Q: What makes a
story? What are the most basic, stripped down components that when combined
make up a story?

A story is the sum of its parts. That includes character,
plot, setting, with a beginning, middle, and end. There are multiple ways to
tell a story, but they all should have these basic elements.

Q: What
are the bare bones of what a reader considers a complete story?﻿

I'd like to think it's
the same thing as my above answer, but as a reader, sometimes I follow characters
and authors from one novel to the next without worrying about the other aspects
and assuming they'll be there when I read the story.

Q: What do you do when don't feel like writing? How do you
make yourself write?

If
I'm on a deadline, which is most of the time, and work has to happen, I sit
down and just plow through. If not, then I take the day, or maybe a few hours
off, go outside, see a movie, whatever. Eventually, the urge returns.

Q: Would you break
the law to save a loved one?

It would depend on what they needed saved from,
I suppose, but I guess so. It's hard to say unless you're in that position. It
is a nice germ of an idea that could blossom into a great story though.

Q: What is the difference between
being alive and truly living?

Just being alive is existing. Simply existing is not enough. Living means
experiencing the wonder that is our world, getting out there and meeting new
people, trying new things, exploring new experiences. Sadly, we all spend so
much of our life existing that we forget to live. I am just as guilty of that
as anyone. In fact, I'm kind of going through that now and have been feeling
like I'm not embracing life to its fullest, but I'm working on that.

Q: What motivates you to write?

I get asked this a lot and my go to answer is "deadlines." While this
is a very true answer, I find that it is not always a well-received answer,
especially by those who don't live their lives under one deadline or another
the way I do. So, I decided to come up with a secondary, though no less true,
answer.

Finishing the story motivates me to write. Just like when I read a book
or watch a movie, I am excited to reach the conclusion and see how all of the
pieces fit together. Writing is a lot like that for me. I want to see how the
pieces that are bouncing around in my brain fit together once I get them typed
and in some semblance of order. Considering the sometimes chaotic nature with
which my creative side concocts these stories, I'm amazed that so many of them
turn out as well as they do.

Oh, yeah. And deadlines.

Q: What was the biggest challenge in creating your books?

Getting them finished in a timely manner. I am a master of wasting time, prone
to distraction easily. Finding myself in the zone where I write for hours
uninterrupted is a rare gift, but one I wish I received more often.

Q: What is the most important thing you have learned in life so far?

I am a firm believer in "The Golden Rule." Do unto others as you'd
have them do unto you. I try to treat everyone fairly and I give everyone the
benefit of the doubt. Experience has given me trust issues, but I want to
believe that people are telling me the truth. Unfortunately, such is not always
the case, but you learn how to ween those individuals out. When I've shuffled
off this mortal coil in a hundred years or so (hey, I'm an optimist), I want to
be remembered as the kind of person you could trust.

Q: How do you come up with the titles for your novels?

Titles come in all sorts of ways. I've told the story before about how Evil
Ways came about because I needed 3 classic rock songs to be mentioned in the
story so I turned on the radio and used the next 3 to play. One of those was
Evil Ways and I thought it was a great title so I used it as a placeholder. It
stuck. Deadly Games! was originally called Games. I had planned a second book,
which would be called Deadly Games. Yeah, I liked to think ahead. The story is
about a villainous man who uses games against his enemies so the title seemed
like a no-brainer. I shopped it to a publisher who told me that Games was too
weak of a title so I added the "Deadly" to it and the "!",
which the publisher was not a fan of either, although I kind of liked it. It
added that action/adventure touch I was looking for in the title. As you may
have noticed, the publisher and I did not come to an agreement, but by that
time, I was used to the book being called Deadly Games! and decided to keep it.
The sequel, once I write the darn thing, will be called Deadly Deals! and carry
on the title branding much like Evil Intent follows Evil Ways. EarthstrikeAgenda just came to me. It sounded cool and fit the story.

Q: How do you handle personal criticism?

You take criticism with a grain of salt and a thick skin. You feel bad when it
happens, maybe cry or rage in private (never publicly). Never argue with the
critics, especially in a professional setting. As an author, sometimes things
are said in reviews that are flat wrong. It happens. One reviewer once said
that something in one of my short stories was improbable so gave it a low score.
What the reviewer didn't know was that I had thoroughly researched said event
(being vague here on purpose, by the way) and not only was it plausible, but
scientifically sound. Did I reply to the review with this information?
Absolutely not. First off, no good would have come from it. Secondly, I would
have looked like a jerk (just look at stories about other writers who have
argued with their reviewers) and maybe lost readers. Third, the reviewers
opinion, whether I think it's wrong or not, doesn't matter. Someone read the
book and wrote down their thoughts. Good or bad review, withstanding. If
someone takes the time to leave a review, you say thank you and move on.
Reviews are like gold. Cherish the ones you get.

Q: Why should people read your book?

Because it's cool and I like to pay my bills. Ha! Ha! Okay, in all honesty, I
want people to read my work and enjoy themselves. That's it. Now, if they enjoy
one story enough to buy another, or all of them, well, that's a cool bonus I'll
accept all day long.

Q: Why is there something rather than nothing?

There is because there is not.

Q: We
all love the times when words and plot flow like Nigara Falls ... but how do
you deal with the times when it feels like pulling teeth just to get a few
paragraphs on in a work in progress?

You just soldier through and keep moving forward.

Q: When you want to write
something new and different, what is your go-to for information and ideas?
Movies? Other books? Real life news? Real history? Your personal life?

All of the above. I'll
take ideas, information, and inspiration wherever I can get it.

Q: When is it
done? When are you sure that a book is complete and ready to query or publish?
When do you feel positive you can move on to the next book?

It's a gut feeling.
You just know that's it. Of course, after it's sent off, you'll think of
something else to change, but you just have to know when to say when and know
it's too late to change anything and move onto the next project. Otherwise,
you'll never finish. If you wait until it's perfect before sending it off to a
publisher or agent, you'll never send it.

Q: I'd like to
hear your strongest personal philosophy about writing

... to just get the story
down ... to research well ... to go with the flow ... to think about the
publisher (or agent) you might want to pitch ... think about the genre ... think
about the reader ... the word count ... the current trends ... use great
editors ... etc. What is your philosophy?

I don't know if I've
ever thought about a philosophy behind my writing. I guess I'm not that deep. Writing is what I do. It's
who I am. If I'm not writing, not creating, then I'm thinking about creating,
or I'm doing writing-related work. Writing isn't just a job for me, but an
extension of who I am. I like to tell stories. I like to entertain. I like to
create new worlds and characters that will hopefully strike a chord with
readers. I may not always succeed, especially on the business side of things,
but I'm in this for the long haul and I hope the desire to create never
abandons me. Not sure if you can call that my philosophy or not, but it is who
I am in a nutshell.

Q: How
do you entertain your muse when life requires time away from the keyboard?

When I can't be in
front of the laptop, I constantly run scenes through my head, over and over
again at times until they are just right.

Q: I've got a question for you. Many
authors think that how they're published determines how they should market. Do
you believe that author marketing is easier, harder, more effective, impossible
... basically different.. if you're self published, with a small or mid sized
publisher, or with a major publisher?

There are certain tenants of
marketing that I do no matter what publisher publishes my book. Getting the
word out is key and I have cultivated an email mailing list, social media
contacts, and the like. I make sure that those recipients are updated. Where I
notice the difference is not in the marketing I initiate, but in the marketing
the publisher does. Some publishers will set up interview opportunities or
signing options as part of their ongoing company-wide marketing plan. That will
help me reach an audience I might not have had access to before. Working in
concert with the publisher's marketing plans, I can better plan my own
marketing.

Q: Writing can be transcendent for
the writer, and transcendent for the reader. However, have you ever written a
passage that deeply inspired you but somehow didn't resonate with your readers?

I'm really not sure. I don't recall
any instances of a reader bringing anything like that to my attention, although
I wouldn't be surprised if it happened. We all bring our own
"baggage", for lack of a better term to what we read and/or write. My
baggage is probably not the same as your baggage. Also, my reading/TV/movies
experience is probably different that my reader's experience. With my interest
in space exploration, I may mention something along those lines or reference
President Kennedy's famous speech. To readers in their teens or 20's, that may
not hold the same emotional presence as it does for me.

Q: What is your writing Achilles Heel? Punctuation? Editing? Story or plot?
Dialog? Time or interruptions? Other? What is your weakness as a writer?

Interruptions and distractions. I
need to become better at time management. I spend too much time on social
media. I need to get better and limiting the time to small chunks of time
instead of just being on it until I'm ready to stop. Those darn commas are a
problem too sometimes. I get so into what I'm writing that it jumbles out of
me. Thank God for good editors who help me catch those.

Q: Last night I had the best time
seeing Stephen King speak here in Pittsburgh! Today's question ... how many and
which bestselling/famous authors have you had the opportunity to see speak
live?

I have had the pleasure of seeing
many great creative talents talk at conventions and conferences over the years.
I love talking the craft of writing with writers and listening to the process
discussion. I don’t get to talk writing as much as I’d like.

Q: What do you hate about marketing your books? What irritates you the most? Go
on, get it all out, you'll feel so much better.

I hate that the marketing I do
isn't reaching the right people. I am not reaching enough potential
readers with my current marketing efforts.

Q: What idea, character, scene, or plot twist that came out of left field and
totally surprised you? I'd love to know how your muse plays with you.

My muse is a foul trickster. I think
his name might be Loki: god of chaos.

I wrote a story for the
ebook/audiobook NIGHTBEAT: NIGHT STORIES, new stories based on the old time
radio series, Nightbeat. The story I pitched was pretty straightforward. I knew
who the villain of the piece was, so did Randy Stone, the protagonist, a
newspaper reporter who gets between a former girlfriend of his and her husband,
a mobster that she has run away from with their child. As I near the end of the
story, Stone and the mobster face off and words are exchanged. Stone lays it
out there that he knows what this guy has done. Then I typed the reply and the
words that came out of my fingers was "I have no idea what you're talking
about."

Suddenly, as if a light bulb had gone off above my head, I knew who
the true villain of the story was and it was a better ending than my original
plan. So, once I finished, I went back over the story to add in the clues that
will make the reveal make sense. Imagine my surprise when those clues were
already there. It had simply taken me a while to put the pieces together just
as it did for Randy Stone. It's still one of my favorites.

Q: When do you break out and number your chapters? When the book is being
written, or when the book is finished? Are you looking for page number balance
for each chapter? Or are you going with the flow?

I number chapters as I go, but they
do often get renumbered as I go along and add or combine chapters. It just
feels off for me not to put a number there when I start a new chapter.

Q: Who sees your finished manuscript first? Which reader do you trust most to
help tighten a plot or polish a story? Friend? Beta reader? Professional
editor? Who gets the first look?

It varies. Because I seem to be down
to the wire so often lately on deadlines, I don't really utilize beta readers
as much as I used to when I was starting out. In many cases, the first to see
it after I'm done is the editor.

Oh, captain... my captains...

Q: Rank the Star Trek
TV series.

Star Trek Deep Space
Nine

Star Trek The Next
Generation

Star Trek The Original
Series

Star Trek Voyager

Star Trek Enterprise

The top spot on this
one was an easy pick. I love DS9 from start to finish and it is my overall
favorite Star Trek series. TNG's seasons 3 - 5 are great, which is why it
nudged ahead of TOS. Voyager and Enterprise, while often enjoyable, never quite
reached the same re-watchability for me as the other series did.

Q: Rank the Star Trek
captains.

Sisko
Picard

Kirk
Janeway
Archer

This one was a bit more difficult. I
chose partly by who I felt might get me home alive if I served under them. It
wasn’t until after I composed the list that I realized the captains ranked the
same as their respective series. Coincidence? Who knows?

Q: When developing
characters, do you start from scratch or use models (like real people or movie
stars) to build from?

I usually start from scratch with a
character's story before I worry about his or her looks. There are exceptions
to this, of course. It's not a hard and fast rule. I rarely use celebrities to
establish a character's look. Usually, I'll base the look and voice on someone
I either know or have met so I can hear that voice when the character speaks.
It helps make the character real and once I get to know the characters, I can
follow them into situations and see how they react.

What review stars mean...

Q: As a writer, are you satisfied
with the number of reviews your books receive?

I don't think any writer is ever
satisfied with the number of reviews they get. I would love to get more
reviews. That said, I am extremely grateful for the reviews I have received
because someone took time out of their busy day to write a few words about my
work is an amazing thing. Reviews are always appreciated. Yes, even the bad
ones.

Atlanta, Georgia. USA

Q: What are your favorite countries
for settings and why?

I go wherever the story takes me. As
I am from and live in the United States, I know this area better than others,
but when stories call for my characters to travel the world, I go into research
mode. One of the perks of writing adventure fiction, genre fiction, pulp, or
whatever we're calling it these days is that it often involves discoveries and
travel. I consider it a gift to see the world through the character's eyes.

Q: Can you write from any location?
Does changing your setting, time or place, spur new ideas?

Sure. I often grab the laptop and
head to a restaurant, the back porch, the library, or to just another room in
the house to write. Sometimes that change of scenery acts like a fresh start
and keeps me working.

Q: Do your characters have favorite
cocktails and meals for the summer?

Not really. At least not until the
plot requires them to have one. Some of my characters have been spotted drinking a beer or two.

Q: Do you have a nickname?

Oh, boy. Yes. Yes, I do. Several in
fact. It's a good bet that if you meet my Dad, you too will walk away with a
nickname. Here are a few of mine. B.J. - this one is the one I've had the
longest and the easiest. I'm Bobby Jr. so B.J. was an obvious choice. Some
friends of mine over the years have called me Super B or Boobs (yeah, yeah,
quit yer snickerin', kids), but the one that still stymies me to

this day was
the one my grandfather called me. He called me Whompas (Whomp + pass). I never
understood why or what it meant, but he called me that until the day he died.
He was the only one who called me that nickname died with him.

Q: Looking
to compile a list of the best Written TV shows- what should be on there?

Deadwood, Justified, Person of Interest, The Newsroom, Twilight Zone, Firefly, Titus, Longmire, The Shield, and Star Trek (each show had some great episodes) would top my list.

Q: For
those of you who write action scenes, is there a method to your madness? A
length to your action scenes? A clear choreography? How far do you make sure go
to get it right?

Action scenes are fun
to write. I generally use smaller sentences in

action scenes, no big
paragraphs, and short, sometimes choppy dialogue so that action scenes are read
faster, thereby giving the reader a feeling of things speeding up. Choreography
is great when you can do it and I try to get the action as accurate as
possible, but sometimes you have to fudge things a bit for the sake of story
just like TV shows and movies sometimes do.

Q: How do you prepare
for the quiet scenes, the pivotal scenes that drive a story home softly?

There is a way to slow
down the reader with longer paragraphs and fewer breaks to start the next
sentence or line. There is also more room

for longer conversations between
characters and moments of introspection that will allow the slower scenes to
work, drop the information they need to drop for the story, and still remain
entertaining.

Q: Do
you attend writing conferences or events?

Oh, yes. I love them and do them
whenever I can. At the writers conferences I've been part of, as well as
at some conventions, I do a workshop on creating graphic novels from
pitch to completion. I love learning new things and there are always
interesting topics at writers conferences. The forensics workshops I've sat in
were very valuable. I also learn new ways to handle marketing and promotion,
which is always valuable. The social aspect is also great. I've met some very
interesting people at conferences and conventions, some of whom have gone on to
become close, personal friends.

I love cons. Want me to come to your local convention or conference? Ask them to invite me. All it takes is an email to bobby@bobbynash.com to get the ball rolling.

Q: How do you invent or create
your characters?

Continuing from the question above about creating character...For me, character starts with a
defining trait, that one thing I can build off of as I flesh out the character.
It can be a small thing like he collects stamps or is afraid of heights to more
in depth like the character is a family man with three kids to after being
shot, Abraham Snow realizes he's been avoiding actually living his life.

From that beginning, I start adding
pieces to the puzzle, finding a voice and a look for the character, sometimes
changing things as we go. Abraham Snow, for example, went through several name
changes until I settled on the one that stuck. With each name change, some
things changed with the character until he became the guy that readers fell in
love with in Snow Falls.

Once I get to know the character I
can follow them into situations and see how they respond to them.

And then there are those rare instances where a character comes to me fully formed at the jump. It's great when it happens, but I'm usually a little leery of them because I could be subconsciously remembering another character that already exists. For that reason, I always discard character names that come to me too easily.

Q: Who's your favorite Mentor character and why? What
about that character makes them your favorite?﻿

By
mentor character, I'm assuming a character in books or movies who takes on the
mentoring role of another character. Here are three of my favorites. I could
probably rattle off a dozen or so.

There
have been some really cool mentor characters over the years. The first that
springs to mind is Yoda from Empire Strikes Back as he mentors Luke Skywalker
in the ways of the Force on Dagobah. Of course, Obi Wan Kenobi served a similar
role in the original

trilogy, but Yoda really grabbed us with his pearls of
wisdom like "Do or do not, there is no try."

Benjamin
Sisko and Miles O'Brien were both mentors to Nog on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
One of the characters with the most growth from the pilot to the final episode
is Nog, who was just a petty thief when we first meet him to being a war hero
for the Federation and promoted to an officer rank by the end of the series.

Not bad for a character who was only a guest star on the show. While it was
Nog's unlikely friendship with Jake Sisko that brought Nog into their lives,
both Sisko, and later O'Brien, took the young Ferengi under their wing, helping
him not only become the first of his race to join Starfleet, but to also become
one of the stations brightest officers. Because of Nog's personality, race, and
upbringing, many officers would have dismissed him out of hand, as Sisko almost
did at first. Nog ended up teaching Sisko a few lessons about prejudices the
captain didn't even realize he had and work through them.

As
Captain America, Steve Rogers has mentored many heroes and villains over the
years in the comic books. Over the years, Cap has mentored or partnered with
characters like The Falcon, Bucky, and Rick Jones, but he has also teamed up
with and helped rehabilitate villains into heroes like Nomad, Diamondback,
Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, D-Man, and Namor. Captain America has been
the living embodiment of The American Dream and he treats those who work with
him with a respect that makes them want to earn it. I also see a good deal of
that coming through in Chris Evans' portrayal of the character in the movies.

Q: What's your
favorite marketing tactic? Which one makes you feel like you're making headway
with new book buyers? What do you find yourself doing most often?

I think my best tactic is when I can
interact with readers. Conventions, appearances, podcasts, or on-line Q & A
sessions like this one are all great for creating a dialogue with my audience. Those work
much better than me constantly trying to pitch that my book is for sale. I could post a hundred "Buy My Book" posts on social media, but all that does is make potential readers ignore me.

Q: Last week I saw Stephen King
speak live here in Pittsburgh. He was asked if he ever wished he could take
back an already published book. Except for one (about a young man doing a
shooting at a school which he did have pulled from publication) he's never felt
he wanted to take a book back for any reason. They

were finished and like
children, off to college. Today's question ... Do you have a problem letting a
book go out into to world for any reason? Because you feel it could be better?
Because you feel it could have been edited better? Because you worry about the
plot or characters not being as good as you wish? Because you always want
to change something about a story?

There comes a point where you just
have to cut the cord and let the story make its way into the world. Do I get
great ideas that might make it better after it's published? All the time, but
once a book is out of my hands, it's out of my hands and I move on to something
else. There are exceptions. When Evil Ways was re-released a few years back at
a new publisher, I went in and fixed some errors. I didn't change the story
though.

Q: Is
it hard to keep your writing on track with summertime distractions? Kids at
home, tourists, sunny weather, looming vacations? Do you write super early or
super late in the day to keep the flow going? Or do you have a system of
locking the world out so you can write?

I work around the day
job and family commitments. Mostly, that means nights and weekends or whenever
I can squeeze in time.

Q: Do you keep
timelines for your works in progress? Do you have readers

that keep an eye out
for events out of sequence or inconsistent? How do you keep time straight?

On my first draft, I
will put the day and location at the beginning of the chapter. That helps me
keep time straight in case I get the urge to move chapters around.

Q: In WRITING
21st CENTURY FICTION, author and literary agent Donald Maass suggests that you,
the author, be somewhere in every book you write as an observing or active
character. Are you in any of your books?

There's a little bit
of me in all my books, but as for certain characters, not really. Harold Palmer
from Evil Ways is probably closest to me in terms of personality as IO based
his on mine and his brother's personality on my brother. Other than that,
there's parts of me in everything.

And I think that is a good place to stop for this round of Sometimes I Get Asked Stuff… Do you have any questions you’d like me to answer? Post them here as a comment or send them along to

bobby@bobbynash.comand I’ll answer them in a future installment of Sometimes I Get Asked Stuff...

Also, please sign up for my mailing list. Drop me an email at bobby@bobbynash.com and I'll happily add you to the list. If you’d like to check out my work, you can find my books at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, Smashwords, and more. To all those who have picked up books and/or left reviews, a big THANK YOU! You are all wonderful and I appreciate each and

every review posted. Thanks for reading the book and for taking the time to write.